Heaven on Earth?: Theological Interpretation in Ecumenical Dialogue

233 Pages·2013·1.52 MB·English

by  Hans Boersma

Heaven on Earth?
Directions in Modern Theology Book Series
Born out of the journal Modern Theology, the Directions in Modern Theology
book series provides issues focused on important theological topics and texts
in current debate within that discipline, whilst looking at broader contem-
porary topics from a theological perspective. It analyses notions and think-
ers, as well as examining a wide spectrum of “modern” theological eras:
from late Medieval through to the Enlightenment and up until the present
“post-modern” movements. Attracting distinguished theologians from a
world-wide base, the book series develops what is a unique forum for inter-
national debate on theological concerns.
Titles in the series include:
Heaven on Earth? Theological Interpretation in Ecumenical Dialogue
Edited by Hans Boersma and Matthew Levering
Faith, Rationality and the Passions
Edited by Sarah Coakley
Re-thinking Dionysius the Areopagite
Edited by Sarah Coakley and Charles M. Stang
The Promise of Scriptural Reasoning
Edited by David Ford and C. C. Pecknold
Aquinas in Dialogue: Thomas for the Twenty-First Century
Edited by Jim Fodor and Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt
Re-thinking Gregory of Nyssa
Edited by Sarah Coakley
Theology and Eschatology at the Turn of the Millennium
Edited by L. Gregory Jones and James Buckley
Catholicism and Catholicity: Eucharistic Communities in Historical and Contem-
porary Perspectives
Edited by Sarah Beckwith, L. Gregory Jones and James J. Buckley
Theology and Scriptural Imagination: Directions in Modern Theology
Edited by L. Gregory Jones and James Buckley
Spirituality and Social Embodiment
Edited by L. Gregory Jones and James Buckley
Heaven on Earth?
Theological Interpretation in
Ecumenical Dialogue
Edited by
Hans Boersma and Matthew Levering
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
This edition first published 2013
Originally published as Volume 28, Issue 4 of Modern Theology
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1 2013
CONTENTS
Introduction: Spiritual Interpretation and Realigned Temporality 1
HANS BOERSMA and MATTHEW LEVERING
Part I—Reading the Fathers 11
1 “In Many and Various Ways”: Towards A Theology of
Theological Exegesis 13
BRIAN E. DALEY, SJ
2 “There’s Fire in That Rain”: On Reading the Letter and Reading
Allegorically 33
LEWIS AYRES
3 Origen against History? Reconsidering the Critique of Allegory 53
PETER W. MARTENS
4 “This Is the Day Which the Lord Has Made”: Scripture,
Manumission, and the Heavenly Future in Saint Gregory
of Nyssa 75
HANS BOERSMA
Part II—Reading Scripture 91
5 Imperial Lover: The Unveiling of Jesus Christ in Revelation 93
PETER J. LEITHART
6 Translation and Transcendence: The Fragile Future of Spiritual
Interpretation 109
DAVID LYLE JEFFREY
vi Contents
7 Readings on the Rock: Typological Exegesis in Contemporary
Scholarship 129
MATTHEW LEVERING
Part III—Reading in Contemporary Context 155
8 The Self-Critique of the Historical-Critical Method: Cardinal
Ratzinger’s Erasmus Lecture 157
MICHAEL MARIA WALDSTEIN
9 Profiling Christ: The Psalms of Abandonment 173
FRANCESCA A. MURPHY
10 Reading the Book of the Church: Bonhoeffer’s Christological
Hermeneutics 189
JENS ZIMMERMANN
11 “Ascending the Mountain, Singing the Rock:
Biblical Interpretation Earthed, Typed, and Transfigured” 207
KEVIN J. VANHOOZER
Index 231
INTRODUCTION: SPIRITUAL
INTERPRETATION AND
REALIGNED TEMPORALITY
moth_17731..10
HANS BOERSMA AND MATTHEW LEVERING
The current scholarly trend of increased attention to spiritual or theological
interpretation of Scripture shows few signs of abating. Both by way of
underlying hermeneutical reflection and in terms of biblical commentary,
historical-critical interpretation appears to be on the wane as the dominant
mode of biblical scholarship. The articles that comprise this special issue of
Modern Theology are written in the conviction that this renewed attention to
spiritual interpretation not only represents a positive re-appropriation of
earliermodesofexegesisbutalsooffersrenewedopportunityforecumenical
dialogue, in particular between Catholics and evangelicals. While historical
exegesishasimpactedbothCatholicandevangelicalbiblicalscholarship,itis
nonetheless possible to discern differences between the two traditions.
Within the Catholic Church, spiritual interpretation has always had a privi-
legedposition,andarguablythedevelopmentofdoctrinewithinCatholicism
(including at the earliest Councils) depends in part on the conviction that
historical exegesis does not provide exhaustive insight into the meaning of
Scripture. Evangelicals, partially out of concern with controls for a proper
guidance of doctrinal development, have tended to be more reticent with
regardtospiritualexegesis,andcanattimesbequitecriticalaboutpatristic
and medieval approaches to biblical interpretation. Since the renewed
focus on theological interpretation cuts across traditional ecclesial divides,
however, it has become necessary for Catholics and evangelicals to enter
into conversation both about what spiritual or theological interpretation
should and should not look like and about possible doctrinal implications
HeavenonEarth?:TheologicalInterpretationinEcumenicalDialogue,FirstEdition.
EditedbyHansBoersmaandMatthewLevering.
©2013BlackwellPublishingLtd.Bookcompilation©2013BlackwellPublishingLtd.
2 HansBoersmaandMatthewLevering
thatthisrenewedfocusmayhavefortherelationshipbetweenCatholicsand
evangelicals.
These considerations were the reason for the authors of this introductory
article—at the same time co-directors of the Center for Catholic-Evangelical
Dialogue (www.ccedprograms.org)—to organize a conference at Regent
College in Vancouver in September of 2011 on the theme of “Heaven on
Earth?TheFutureofSpiritualInterpretation.”Thisconference,theresultofa
Lilly Research Grant of the Association of Theological Schools, brought
together Catholic and evangelical scholars in ecumenical discussion about
the question of whether the recent flourishing of theological interpretation
representssomesortof“heavenonearth”orwhetherweoughttobeaware
alsoofshadowsidestothisrecenttrend.Further,sincethesedevelopments
raiseimportantquestionsabouttherelationshipbetweenhistoricalandspiri-
tual meaning—as well as between nature and the supernatural, reason and
faith, and earthly and heavenly realities—the conference theme conveys a
double entendre, raising explicitly the most intriguing issue at stake in the
questionoftheologicalinterpretation.
Inthisintroductoryarticle,wewanttooffersomeinitialreflectionsonthe
topic of spiritual interpretation. We will focus, however, not on the spatial
categories of “heaven” and “earth” but on the question of time. We have
become convinced that the way in which we evaluate the relationship
between historical and spiritual exegesis not only depends on our under-
standing of the relationship between heaven and earth but also has to do
withhowweunderstandtemporality.Inparticular,itseemstousthatwhen
we look at time not just in chronological but also in sacramental fashion,
patristic approaches to spiritual interpretation become intelligible. The first
partofourarticlewillshowhowthisfunctionsinthepre-modernChristian
distinctionbetween“seculartime”and“highertime.”Inthesecondpartof
thisarticle,wewillmakeclearthat,intheirdiscussionsoftheSecondVatican
Council’s Dei Verbum, various theological voices have recently appealed
to a similar sacramental understanding of time in defence of spiritual
exegesis.1
Temporality,Participation,andSpiritualExegesis
Time, for the premodern mindset, was not simply a strictly chronological
affair.CharlesTaylor,inhisbook,ASecularAge,drawsadistinctionbetween
“secular time” and “higher time.”2 Secular time, Taylor maintains, is some-
thingwecanalsorefertoas“ordinarytime,”seeingthattheword“secular”
isderivedfromthetermsaeculum,meaning“century”or“age.”“Peoplewho
areinthesaeculum,”explainsTaylor,“areembeddedinordinarytime,they
are living the life of ordinary time; as against those who have turned away
fromthisordertoliveclosertoeternity.Thewordisthususedforordinary
Introduction 3
as against higher time. A parallel distinction is temporal/spiritual. One is
concerned with things in ordinary time, the other with the affairs of eter-
nity.”3 Secular or ordinary time, in other words, refers to the basic chrono-
logical progression of temporal events, whereas higher time has to do with
theeternal,unchangingrealmofeternity,whichEuropehadinheritedfrom
PlatoandGreekphilosophy.
Taylorthenmakesthecrucialmoveofinsistingthatthenotionof“higher
time”enabledvariouschronologicalmomentsin“seculartime”tobelinked
to each other. Taylor mentions the example of the sacrifice of Isaac and the
Crucifixion of Christ as two moments in secular time that are somehow
linkedtogetheror,wecouldalmostsay,becomecontemporaneous:
Now higher times gather and re-order secular time. They introduce
“warps” and seeming inconsistencies in profane time-ordering. Events
whichwerefarapartinprofanetimecouldneverthelessbecloselylinked.
Benedict Anderson in a penetrating discussion of...some of the same
issues I am trying to describe here, quotes Auerbach on the relation
prefiguring-fulfillinginwhicheventsoftheOldTestamentwereheldto
stand to those in the New, for instance the sacrifice of Isaac and the
CrucifixionofChrist.Thesetwoeventswerelinkedthroughtheirimme-
diate contiguous places in the divine plan. They are drawn close to
identity in eternity, even though they are centuries (that is, “aeons” or
“saecula”)apart.InGod’stimethereisasortofsimultaneityofsacrifice
andCrucifixion.4
The “simultaneity” of two chronologically distinct moments in time is a
remarkable feature of premodern Christianity.And it is no coincidence that
TaylorusestheexampleofthesacrificeofIsaacandtheCrucifixionofChrist.
Somehow,itappears,thetwosacrificesarejoinedtogetherata“highertime,”
in eternity.5 Two historical events, one of which we could describe as Old
Testament type and the other as New Testament antitype are linked and
becomesimultaneousbecausetogethertheyparticipateinthe“highertime”
ofGod’seternity.
Thisdistinctionbetweensecularandhighertimehadobviousandsignifi-
cant implications for the interpretation of Scripture. The typological and
allegorical exegesis of the church fathers generally did not result from an
arbitraryimpositionofalienmeaningsontothebiblicaltext,soastoavoidits
moreobvioushistoricalmeaning.Rather,premoderntheologicalorspiritual
interpretationresultedfromtheconvictionthatOldTestamenteventsoccur-
ringin“ordinarytime”werecontiguouswith(infact,inanimportantsense,
linked in with) their Christological fulfillment in the New Testament. This
connection resulted from the fact that both events were linked in the provi-
dential rule of God in eternity. We have described this participatory under-
standing of time elsewhere as follows: “When history is understood as a
participationinGod,thewordsanddeedsdepictedinJohn’sGospeltakeon
4 HansBoersmaandMatthewLevering
whatforChristiansisrecognizableastheirtrueanddeepestmeaning.Jesus
Christ constitutes the center of linear and participatory history as the incar-
nateWord,theoneMediator,inwhomhumanbeingsreceivetheHolySpirit
and are led to the Father.”6 Participatory exegesis assumes that chronologi-
cally disparate events participate, in and through the Christ event, in the
“highertime”ofeternityitself.
CharlesTaylorrightlypointstoSt.Augustineasanexampleofanexegete
who recognizes that “all times are present to [God], and he holds them in
hisextendedsimultaneity.Hisnowcontainsalltime.”7Augustine,however,
is not the only one for whom time functioned in this manner, and for
whom, as a result, exegesis both distinguished and linked historical and
spiritual levels of meaning. We find much the same in several places in
Gregory of Nyssa’s writings. We will restrict ourselves to just one example.
In his Easter homily De tridui spatio (On the Three-day Period), Gregory
depicts for us the neophytes entering the church, each of them holding a
burning candle. St. Gregory maintains that the light of the many candles is
derived from the one light of Christ himself. The one light of Christ thus
shedsitslightforwardtothemanylightsoftheneophytes.Ashereflectson
the many Old Testament passages that foreshadow this one light of Christ,
Nyssenmaintainsthatthey,too,functionlikemanylittlecandlesthatderive
their light from the Christ candle himself. Thus, the one light of Christ also
shedsitslightbackwardtothemanylightsoftheOldTestamentScriptures.
Comments Gregory: “And just as in the scene before our eyes one light
blazes about our vision, though constituted by a multitude of candles, so
the whole blessing of Christ, shining by itself like a torch, produces for us
this great light compounded from the many and varied rays of scripture.”8
It appears that for Gregory, both the many lights of Old Testament history
andthemanylightsoftoday’sneophytesparticipateinChrist,whileinand
through him they participate in the “higher time” of the eternal light of
God’s providential life.
TemporalityinFrancisMartin,JosephRatzinger,andDenisFarkasfalvy
IntheirdiscussionsofVaticanII’sDogmaticConstitutionDeiVerbum,several
contemporary theologians present understandings of time that are remark-
ablysimilartothatofGregoryofNyssa.ThebiblicalscholarFrancisMartin
creditshisfifteenyearsinaCistercianMonasterywithgivinghimtheaware-
nessthat“thenativehomeofScriptureistheLiturgy.”9Martin,likeGregory,
inconvincedthatsavingrealitiesrevealedinScripturecontinuetobepresent
todayinawaythatstrictlytime-boundrealitiescouldnotbe.Drawingupon
a range of thinkers, including Henri de Lubac and Matthew Lamb, Martin
proposesthinkingofhistoryintermsof“temporality”andthusofpresence.10
Henotesthatmodernhistoriographyconceivesoftimesolelyasasuccession
ofmoments,whereasfromamorebiblicalperspectiveAugustinearguesthat